If the January 6th Committee doesn’t refer Trump for prosecution, it’ll be because the DOJ is prosecuting him anyway
We’re coming off one of the best political weeks we’ve had in quite awhile. One of the biggest pieces of good news to arrive this week was the confirmation that the DOJ is indeed criminally investigating Donald Trump on multiple fronts – something we’ve been wanting to hear for a long time.
But because good news isn’t good for ratings, the media is now trying to spin this into a scary doomsday week. Today the New York Times reported that the January 6th Committee, which had previously reportedly been in favor of making a criminal referral to the DOJ against Donald Trump, is now torn about whether to make such a referral after all. Unfortunately the Times article frames this completely out of context, and has left audiences with the false impression that the committee is considering letting Trump just get away with it all.
This is, in reality, not how any of these things work. As we’ve explained from the very start, if the January 6th Committee makes a criminal referral against Donald Trump, it’ll be an attempt at forcing the DOJ to prosecute him. The downside is that if the committee makes such a referral and then the DOJ does prosecute Trump, that prosecution will end up looking partisan due to the referral (which could cost the Democrats votes in the midterms). But the partisan optics of such a referral would certainly be better than the DOJ not prosecuting Trump. So if the committee doesn’t think the DOJ is going to prosecute of its own accord, it’ll have to make a criminal referral against him.
On the other hand, if the committee determines that the DOJ is prosecuting Trump, it doesn’t need to make a criminal referral against him to the DOJ. In fact this would be the ideal scenario: the committee would get to make its case against Trump to the public without telling the DOJ what to do, the DOJ would take Trump down of its own accord, and that would work out the best for everyone involved (except Trump).
So far we only know that the DOJ is investigating Trump, and we don’t yet know if the DOJ is intent on prosecuting Trump. For that reason, it makes perfect sense that the January 6th Committee is still having discussions about which way to lean when it comes to making or not making a DOJ criminal referral. You’d expect spirited debate within the committee over something this important. But neither scenario, making a referral or not making a referral, involves letting Trump off the hook. The committee has already made clear that letting Trump off the hook is absolutely not on the table.
Instead of acknowledging this reality, and informing audiences about how these things actually work, the New York Times (and others) are trying to spin the possibility of no criminal referral as some kind of doomsday scenario in which the committee would be letting Trump off the hook. This is the exact opposite of what it would really mean, but the media rarely passes up an opportunity to falsely spin good news into a more ratings-friendly doomsday narrative.
So many people on our side are falling for this fictional doomsday narrative about the January 6th Committee letting Trump off the hook, committee vice chair Liz Cheney has had to push back against the New York Times’ fear mongering today, confirming that the committee does indeed have more than enough evidence to make such a referral if it determines that a referral is necessary.
But even with Cheney’s pushback, the media has managed to mislead large chunks of the folks on our side into believing that Trump is going to “get away with it all.” So much for our side being able to take this week’s tidal wave of good news and build winning momentum out of it. Instead we have to backtrack and explain for the umpteenth time how the criminal referral scenario actually works, even as far too many people on our side are now right back to idly fretting instead of gearing up to fight and win the midterms. We deserve a better media, to put it mildly.
